– The Mlabri people, who live in the hill country on the border between Thailand and Laos, have been called “the most interesting and least understood people in Southeast Asia”. Their language is in danger of extinction. Here is a charming video of some Mlabri children singing.

– This presentation of Gramophone Recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India consists of digitized recordings originally collected in South Asia during a period from 1913 until 1929.

– The original and various translations (French, German, English) of the classical Chinese poems Mahler used in ‘Das Lied von der Erde‘ (thank you Colin!)

“Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the center of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one.” Walter Benjamin (‘The Task of the Translator,’ translated from the German by Harry Zohn)

‘Russian essentially is the last few words you utter before being eaten by a polar bear…’
‘Italian is essentially tropical Romanian…’
‘English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls…’
– Essentialist explanations for linguistic difference…